6. Chapter 6
Do they always drink like this?
Krystal watched as Jonas and Maria ordered yet another beer to accompany their barbeque ribs, baked beans, and potato salad. The two of them seemed to be in a competition to see who could outdrink and eat the other.
Maybe it’s only when they’re on the road.
She shrugged and laughed to herself as she remembered that, with their jobs, they spent a good chunk of their time on the road.
But whatever the case, it didn’t really bother her.
Jonas and Maria seemed nice even if they were a little rowdy once the beer started flowing.
And it was good to get to know some of Ceth’s friends.
Her attention turned to Ceth as it had numerous times throughout the evening. She was sipping her beer and eating her pulled pork sandwich at a much more moderate pace than her colleagues were, but she looked like she was enjoying herself.
As if sensing Krystal’s attention, she looked across the table and sent her a smile that was almost shy before glancing away as Maria said something to her.
I can’t believe I almost kissed her!
In some ways, Krystal didn’t know how she was managing to eat at all instead of dying from embarrassment.
She’d gotten so swept away with Ceth earlier that she’d abandoned common sense.
Yet it was hard to feel completely humiliated when she was almost positive that Ceth had been about to kiss her back.
Would Ceth have pulled back at the last minute or would she have really kissed Krystal? What would her lips have felt like against Krystal’s? Would the kiss have been as warm and soft as she’d imagined?
Why did they have to get interrupted!?
Still, Krystal was in too good of a mood to resent the way things had gone. Ceth had held her close. Had danced and laughed with her. They’d rediscovered that comfort and lightness they’d once had with each other and maybe even a little something more.
Nothing could dampen her spirits after that!
A chorus of whoops and cheers rang through the crowded restaurant from a nearby table, piercing through Krystal’s musings.
The table was full of women in their twenties, and it was quite possibly the only group in the restaurant noisier than their own.
Several of the women wore pink ballcaps bejeweled with the word “Bridesmaid” on them, and the woman at the center of the activity was wearing a tiara.
Jonas glanced over his shoulder at the women and grunted. Then he elbowed Ceth in the ribs, which earned him a glare.
“Hey, look, O’Malley. It’s a bachelorette party!” he announced gleefully, as if he’d just told the best joke ever.
Ceth’s entire body tensed visibly, and her face grew wary. Her eyes darted to Krystal for a second, and then returned to her friend as she muttered, “Shut up, Jonas.”
“Oh, wazzah matter?” he hiccupped. “Not getting bashful about your conference conquests, are you?”
Ceth looked to Maria, as if silently asking for assistance. The older woman appeared surprisingly more sober than Jonas, but her only answer to Ceth’s unspoken entreaty was to look at Krystal for a long beat then at Ceth before shrugging and returning to her beer.
“Oh, come on!” Jonas continued. “I’ll bet Kristie wants to hear all about it.”
“It’s Krystal,” she corrected absently, although her focus was still on Ceth. Her body language screamed discomfort, but it wasn’t clear why yet.
Ignoring Ceth’s murmured, “No, she doesn’t,” Jonas patted his belly and leaned back in his chair, ready to go into storyteller mode.
“So we’re all in San Antonio two years ago, right?
It’s the last night of the conference, and we’re at this bar where they’re having a bachelorette party.
Well, sort of. The whole party’s down in the mouth and doing shots because their girl has just called off the wedding.
She’s pretty tipsy and mad and telling anyone who will listen how she and her fiancé had just gotten into this big fight.
He’d been a jerk and said some shitty stuff, and she decided to call off the wedding. ”
He stopped to drain his glass before carrying on.
“Well, somehow Ceth winds up chatting up the bride away from the rest of the girls, and the next thing you know, they’re laughing and carrying on.
Not two hours later, they’ve both disappeared, and Maria and I don’t hear from Ceth for the rest of the night! ”
Maria joined in with a smirk that Krystal found decidedly unpleasant. “Of course, we’d seen Ceth do a disappearing act like that enough times to know what she and the bride were getting up to in somebody’s hotel room.”
“Or backseat, or bathroom stall,” Jonas added with a chortle. “What happens at the con stays at the con, right, Ceth?”
Krystal blinked and swallowed before looking at Ceth again, but she kept her eyes on her own glass of beer.
“But the bitch of it was that, the next morning, the groom apparently came around looking for the bride, begging all the bridesmaids and bride’s family to help him find her so he could tell her he was sorry and try to fix everything,” Jonas said.
“But then he found out what the bride had done the night before, and the whole thing blew up.”
Ceth winced at that, and Jonas seemed to finally notice she wasn’t enjoying the guided tour down memory lane. He cleared his throat. “Ah, but you know? The guy sounded like an asshole anyway. She probably couldn’t have fixed things up with him, or if she had, she’d have been sorry.”
When no one responded to that, he signaled for another drink and looked at Krystal. “So, you knew Ceth years ago, huh? Was she getting lots of action back then too?”
“Jonas, for fuck’s sakes,” Ceth spat out, still not looking directly at Krystal or anyone else.
Krystal’s stomach was twisting unpleasantly, but she needed to pretend she hadn’t just listened to a story about how Ceth had contributed to breaking up a couple by sleeping with the drunken bride. Forcing a grin, she shrugged. “Oh, you know. She never seemed to lack for female attention.”
Jonas and Maria both laughed, and Jonas pointed at Krystal. “I knew it!”
Krystal’s teeth ground together, but she gamely laughed along. Truthfully, Ceth had only had one serious girlfriend during the time they had lived together, and it had ended a few months after the move-in. But she’d had one or two casual encounters after that.
She knew that because—no! Giving her head a shake, she tried to empty it of that one particular memory. Ceth hadn’t done serious relationships back then, and obviously, she didn’t do them now either.
At long last, Maria seemed to pick up on the uncomfortable vibe and changed the subject to some other past conference anecdote, but Krystal barely absorbed it.
Her mind was reeling as she reassessed everything that had happened today in light of the image Jonas and Maria’s story was painting of Ceth.
She didn’t begrudge Ceth the right to live her life however she wanted, of course.
But it called into question Ceth’s behavior toward her.
It had felt like she’d wanted to connect and move on from the bad parts of their shared past just as much as Krystal did.
It had even felt like something deeper…more intimate could be simmering under the surface between them.
She’d sensed it in their touches and in the looks Ceth had given her.
Or she’d thought she had.
But what if she’d been wrong? What if the past hadn’t meant that much to Ceth?
That would explain why she couldn’t even remember what they’d fought about!
It hadn’t been the deep source of regret and longing that it had been for Krystal.
Ceth had moved on. And her seeming desire to get closer to Krystal now… maybe that was only casual.
Krystal sucked in a breath, her mind spiraling in that chaotic, unhelpful way she knew it was prone to do but couldn’t always stop.
Had Ceth wanted to make her a conference conquest too?